


those gathered beneath

by Mythopoeia



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [30]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aka that time Feanor and Fingolfin had dinner together and no one almost died, Ceili, Finwe’s Happy Retirement Party, Flashforwards, Gen, Irish American Feanorians, Turgon is both a brat and an unreliable narrator, Warnings for some Turgon language ahem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythopoeia/pseuds/Mythopoeia
Summary: “May the roof above us never fall in and those gathered beneath it never fall out.” -An Irish proverb, as stitched into her sampler by Nerdanel, c. 1845The year is 1847, and the House of Finwe gathers under a single roof to celebrate Finwe’s retirement. Turgon is less than happy that the roof is Feanor’s.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TolkienGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/gifts), [Victoryindeath2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victoryindeath2/gifts).



> May the roof above us never fall in and those gathered beneath it never fall out.
> 
> -A sampler stitched and later framed for display in her home by Nerdanel, c. 1845

There are no train lines that run near enough to my uncle’s estate to be of any use to us, and I cannot help but wonder if this is by design, as I grit my teeth against yet another painful jolt of the carriage-wheels on the uneven road beneath. Uncharitable of me, yes; but then again if anyone in all of New England deserves uncharity, it is Uncle Feanor. I may be only fourteen, as cousin Finrod is fond of reminding me, but I have world-wisdom enough to know that my uncle hates my father—and that the feeling is not mutual, unfortunately. And so, when my uncle insisted our family celebration for Grandfather’s well-deserved retirement from City Council be held not in any of the fine and comfortable establishments in New York City but instead at his country home, my father did not put up nearly as fine a fight as I wished he had. Or wish he had now, for that matter, as I try to rub surreptitiously at the ache lodged in my tailbone from the accumulated bumps of a ten hour carriage ride.

“Turgon, do stop fidgeting,” Irisse complains, glaring at me miserably from the depths of her party frock. “I swear I shall go mad if I have to watch you wriggle one minute more.”

“You are fidgeting more than I am,” I retort, because it is the truth. 

“That’s because I have _petticoats_ on, and they _itch_ , and your wriggling is making it _worse,_ ” my sister begins hotly, but she falls silent when our father frowns at her.

“Aredhel,” he warns, and that is enough. My father is not often angry, but he does get disappointed on occasion, and that is almost worse. 

“Are we almost there?” Argon asks with ill-masked trepidation. He is the baby of us four, and so can get away with whining. My father’s expression softens, and he shifts the shiny silk hat he carries carefully on his lap to one side so he can lean forward a little and point out the left hand window.

“We crossed onto your uncle’s land once we passed the white fence line some five minutes ago, did you not notice, Argon? We will be at the house soon. Look, there is the apple orchard. Your aunt and uncle make their own cider from those apples, did you know that? Your cousin Maitimo brought a jar on his last visit, I seem to remember you liking it well.”

“Oh, that. It was too sweet,” Argon says dismissively, because he is at an age where he loves most to be contrary, but there is a definitely new interest in his eyes as he leans nearly out the window to stare at the rows of trees, all of them standing in rank like an army might. 

“Remember to be on your best behavior, children,” my father says as the carriage makes its last turn to start trundling up the long, wide path to my uncle’s house. This path is much better maintained than the public road we spent most of our traveling on, almost as smooth as the city streets I am familiar with. It is lined with maple and yet more crabapple trees, the former already flaming red and the latter laden with fruit. Argon frowns.

“Our cousins are never well behaved,” he points out, no doubt remembering the last time we visited Uncle Feanor, two years ago, when that terror Curufin locked him in a shed. It took us an hour of searching and my Aunt Nerdanel’s intervention before we were able to find him. “Must we behave well even if they do not?”

Across from me I see Fingon open his mouth and I groan, anticipating the inevitable simpering _Maitimo always behaves well,_ but our father forestalls him with a word.

“Yes,” my father says sternly, with that look in his eye that Irisse and I privately call his _Finwe Look_ : “Especially then.”

*

It is not Uncle Feanor who greets us at the door; it is Aunt Nerdanel.

My father is courteous, as he always is to my aunt, but I saw how he braced himself for that open door, and how his stiff shoulders slumped, ever so slightly, when his brother was not there. I stand behind him, and try not to fidget.

“I sent my husband and his namesake to wash up,” my aunt explains as she ushers us indoors. She has to raise her voice to be heard above the general clamor, as my other uncle and his family have already arrived, and that batch of cousins—besides perhaps only Finrod—are just as rowdy as Uncle Feanor’s sons when they want to be. A cheerful shout goes up as we crowd across the doorstep: _Cousin! Brother! Fingon! Artanis!_

“Hush!” Nerdanel exclaims, but she is not truly scolding. I have seen my Aunt when she is truly in a temper, when she cuffed Curufin about the ears for locking my little brother in the shed. She turns back to my father to further excuse her absent husband: “Feanor and my son were busy in the workshop and lost track of time. They will be down soon, once they are made presentable for company, and my husband wishes me to convey his apologies.”

My father smiles, a little tightly, but he is too much a gentleman to call my aunt out on her falsehood—because of course he knows as well as I that Uncle Feanor would sooner think to apologize to our carriage horses than to my father for any tardiness. And anyway my Aunt Nerdanel has the same charm about her that Maedhros does, if not his beauty, and it is very difficult to dislike her. 

“He is already forgiven,” my father assures her, and then busies himself helping Argon off with his coat, which he hangs up on one of the many coat pegs set in the wall beside the door. Aredhel shoves her way past me, and as I catch my balance I barely remember not to aim a retaliatory kick at her ankle. 

“Cousin Celegorm!” She chirps, as that cousin does indeed hove into view: Celegorm’s hair is always a little too long for fashion, just as his eldest brother’s is, but there the resemblance to famous Maitimo ends. Maedhros is pale and elegant, but Celegorm is burned dark by his days spent wild out of doors and his nails are raggedly cut. He never attended school in New York like his older brothers did, and rumor says he is very nearly illiterate. This is the first time I have seen him wearing anything finer than cotton shirts and breeches, but even cleaned up as he is there is nothing of manners about him, only rude mannerisms aplenty. He dives forward but barely notices Irisse, instead seizing a startled Fingon by the arm.

“Fingon!” He exclaims. “It is good to see you! Please do come with me a moment outside—the hound bitch I wrote you about has had her pups, and I was hoping you would do me the favor of examining them.”

“Oh—certainly,” my brother stammers, as Celegorm is already dragging him through the crowd towards the side stable door, chattering all the while. Fingon looks a bit comical as he tries to nod politely to each family member he is unceremoniously manhandled past, but soon he is gone from view. I find myself alone, as my father is still talking with Aunt Nerdanel—and Uncle Finarfin, who has come forward to welcome us and to inquire after my mother’s health—and Argon has disappeared somewhere as well. Aredhel is now stooping to shove her boots back onto her stocking feet instead of changing into her silk slippers—meaning, no doubt, to follow Celegorm and Fingon. I hesitate, unsure of where to put myself, but then I hear my name called and I look up to see a new figure advancing towards me, having evidently come from the kitchen, to judge by the floured apron still tied around its hips.

It is Maedhros; I recognize him by his bright hair, and his laugh, but by nothing else. I have never seen this smile before: there is no _thought_ in it, and the lack of self-awareness makes him look much younger than his nineteen years. My tall cousin is even taller with his trousers rolled up past his knees as if for wading, and his shirt-sleeves also pushed above his elbows, exposing the freckles on his forearm as he thrusts his own hand out to shake mine warmly. This, too, is Maedhros’ way; he never treats me like a child even when my own brother does.

I wish it was easier to hate this cousin.

“Turgon, it is good to see you,” he says with such earnest frankness that I cannot but believe his enthusiasm is genuine. He looks me over, and laughs again. “You have grown some inches since last we met! How go your studies?”

“I am top of my class in maths,” I inform him, puffing up a little. “My instructor says I have the makings of an architect.”

“Maybe you might build a hospital for Cano,” he suggests, with a twinkle in his eye. “Goodness, a doctor and an architect all in one family. Uncle Fingolfin must be very proud. And what are you aiming to be, then, Aredhel—president?”

My baby sister scoffs as she darts past Maedhros and deeper into the house. “Anything but housewife!” Is all the answer she calls back before disappearing through a gap between Angrod and Aegnor. I try not to look mortified when I realize Aunt Nerdanel definitely heard that, but my aunt only raises one eyebrow as she dryly comments “Wise girl,” and continues her conversation with my father. 

“Where is Fingon, anyway?” Maedhros asks me, releasing my hand. His own hands and arms are much browner than I had thought them in New York, where he is usually very properly covered with jacket, cuffs, and gloves. Even the skin at his open shirt collar is tanned, which makes me suddenly realize he must work shirtless about his father’s farm just as rude Celegorm does. The thought is so scandalous (and at odds with the fashionable image I have of my cousin from our encounters in my city), I can barely remember to answer his question. 

“Outside,” I manage to say. “Celegorm dragged him away to look at the new litter of puppies.” Reluctantly, I add: “I think he was disappointed to be dragged away.”

“Celegorm has done little else but talk of dogs this entire last week since the whelping,” Maedhros says, rolling his eyes. I am struck again by how relaxed my cousin is, here in his father’s house. I had not thought it possible for anyone to look so at ease under Uncle Feanor’s roof. I find I do not like it. 

“Do not worry,” my cousin continues, grinning. “I will save poor Cano.” And with that he leaves me, and I am immediately pounced upon by the Ambarussa, whose rambunctious company I will be unable to extricate myself from for nearly an hour.

*

Uncle Feanor does not have anywhere near as many servants in his employ as my own father does at our fine house in the city. There are only four housemaids bustling about the kitchen, and no men at all, for Uncle Feanor has not had any hired hands on his property since Maedhros was about thirteen—longer ago than I can remember. Even those four housemaids are not really proper maids, I learn from Amrod; they are only the unmarried daughters from neighboring farms whom my aunt is employing to ensure she can properly entertain our rather massive dinner party.

“They aren’t here for the pay, though, not really,” Amrod tells me conspiratorially, with a gap-toothed grin. He has already lost three teeth to Amras’ one, though when I comment on it Amras is quick to inform me one of those three does not count, because it only fell out when Amrod was hit hard in the mouth during a scuffle with Curufin. “They’re all just sweet on Maitimo and are hoping to dance with him tonight.”

“Mary Mason fancies Maglor more, I think,” Amras says with glee. “She was peeling potatoes for an hour, earlier, and she kept glancing around and _singing_ —“

“I thought your brothers already had sweethearts,” I say. The twins look simultaneously scandalized and delighted by my error. 

“Of course not! Why would they?”

“Oh,” I respond feebly, remembering what I’ve seen when Uncle Feanor’s two eldest sons are in New York, and the stories that always make their gossip rounds once my handsome cousins have gone: “No reason, I suppose.”

When the twins finally lose interest in me and run off to play with Angrod instead, I end up wandering towards the kitchen, as I am hungry after our long journey and impatient for the dinner to begin. The warm, busy house is filled with good cooking smells, and the promise of food is torturing me. There seems to be some merit in what the twins told me, as once I reach the kitchen doorway I observe all four of the visiting farm girls are wearing dresses far too nice for housework, and have even curled their hair, although the heat in the kitchen has flattened those ringlets somewhat. Instead of merely supervising their work, my Aunt Nerdanel is working hard alongside them, and it is strange to see her—the lady of the house—leaning into the stone oven to heave out a massive covered roasting dish; even stranger to see some of her older sons crowding around to help, and strangest of all to see my elegant Aunt Earwen cheerfully carrying cases of silverware out to the long dining tables that have been laid in the front room. I try to imagine my own gentle mother doing something as mundane as setting a table, and I cannot. 

“Turgon!” Aunt Earwen calls to me, smiling brightly. “Do help lay out the silverware, if you please; Galadriel has already begun folding the napkins.” 

“Or you could finish the blasted napkins,” Galadriel mutters to me, pulling a face, but I ignore her. Sometimes she and Irisse are a little too much alike.

I cannot think of any excuse that would not seem rude, so I busy myself setting out forks and spoons of varying sizes, and knives for both meat and butter. The farm girls begin to emerge from the kitchen in turns, carrying baskets of roasted corn, still in their blackened hulls, and smelling like smoke and sweetness both. They set the food upon the table, then disappear and reappear again with baskets covered in cloth, with tureens and ceramic bowls and beautiful silver serving platters covered with mirror-shiny lids. The silver dishes, I know, must be my Uncle Feanor’s own craft, for he would never care to eat off another man’s metalwork.

Eventually cousin Maedhros re-enters the house with a bottle of very expensive looking wine swinging from his hand, still corked. Fingon is with him, speaking animatedly as they walk. He is describing some kind of surgical procedure, if the way he is gesturing with the corkscrew in his hand is indicative. Maedhros nods and asks a question, looking wholly engrossed in the most flattering way—most flattering because there is nothing of artifice about his interest. I feel a pang of jealousy, and then another pang as Galadriel elbows me in the ribs: “Stop wrinkling my napkins,” she says crossly. 

I open my mouth to retort with something unkind, but then there is a sudden stir about the room and I look up to see that Feanor, my eldest uncle and our host, has emerged from his room at last to join the company.


	2. Chapter 2

I have not seen my eldest uncle this close since I was very young—six, maybe, or eight. He intimidated me then, and he intimidates me now, even though he seems in a very good mood, calling mocking-merry and loud enough for everyone to hear for Nerdanel to come judge whether he is fit to be seen yet. Such a question is obviously a jest, because my uncle is resplendent in a high-collared cream-white linen shirt, over which is buttoned a silken waistcoat the color of firelit wine, cut in the latest style. His breeches are cream colored to match the shirt, and again are tailored perfectly. There is ivory lace at his throat, tied into a complicated cascading knot and fastened with a golden pin, and his thick dark hair—not graying yet, like my father’s hair is, even though my uncle is the older of the two—is a little tamer than usual, still damp from washing.

I wonder if Maedhros or Maglor had this clothing made for him, during one of their trips to New York, for my uncle is never in the city and I cannot imagine he has made any effort to follow sartorial fashion there. The buttons on his vest are definitely of his own make, though: golden double spirals an inch in circumference each, set with fingernail-fragile slips of real enamel and crumb-like fragments of precious stones. Any other Irishman might have chosen the more popular trinity knot, instead, but my uncle has never liked dwelling on the power and mystical One-ness of Threes.

There is always something otherworldly about Uncle Feanor, something too vibrant to be kept indoors, restless like a flame is restless. I do not know how my cousins can stand living under his roof all their days; I would feel sorry for them, except I know they are as devoted to him as they are to their patron saints, so somehow they must not find the task a trial.

My aunt steps out of the kitchen, red-faced and sweating, and gives my uncle barely a glance as she moves loftily past him to the stairs.

“Supper is mostly on the table,” she tells him as she passes, “so now it is my turn to dress, if you are so determined to outshine me in my own home.”

“ _I?_ ” My uncle exclaims, mock-offended as he places an exaggerated hand on his own breast; with his other hand he blocks the staircase, holding his arm out like a barricade that Aunt Nerdanel is stopped by. “Outshine _you_ , my love? _Never!_ ”

My aunt gives my uncle a Look—a Look that is very like a Finwe Look, which I was not expecting at all. But Uncle Feanor does not flinch, nor does his famous anger rise. He merely grins like a truant boy, and drops the arm that was barring Aunt Nerdanel’s way.

“Thank you,” she tells him, very sweetly, and with that she ascends the stairs and departs from view.

With his wife gone, Uncle Feanor regards the room, and there are a few calls of greeting, but he does not acknowledge any of them. Instead, he searches until he finds the one man he cares to see, and he strides immediately towards Grandfather Finwe, flinging his arms about the old man in an embrace. He presses his face into his father’s shoulder briefly, almost like a young boy would do, then pulls back. “Athair,” he declares, smiling the same hungry smile I have seen on Curufin’s face before, “You look well after your journey! Retirement must be agreeing with you already. It is good to see you out of the city at last, in the clean air. I trust my boys have made you welcome?”

Grandfather Finwe smiles. My grandfather, when he smiles, reminds me of my father very much. I think Uncle Feanor’s smile must be his mother’s, and wonder what else she gave him, besides the hatred he has for my father. The cleverness in his hands, maybe, and his choleric temperament, and little else good. I am glad I have Indis as my grandmother, for she is steady and kind and patient and I have looked forward to visits to her home ever since I was a small child. I see her now, sitting in a chair in the parlor, deep in lively conversation with Argon. She does not look like she has noticed Uncle Feanor at all, but perhaps she is merely a very good actress. My father stands near the wall with uncle Finarfin, and they have certainly noticed. Uncle Finarfin is still smiling, but a little warily, and my father’s eyes look dark and strange, as he watches my uncle and my grandfather. All his smile is gone.

The prettiest of the farm girls, who had been dawdling near the table the last few minutes, scurried back into the kitchen like she had been stung the instant Uncle Feanor appeared. This leaves only Galadriel and myself near the stairs, but Galadriel is pointedly ignoring Feanor (and unlike the rest of us, she is fully up to the task), so only I am left. The attention of most the room, in fact, turns uneasily away from Feanor, reassured that he is not in ill temper and willing to leave it at that. I, however, close as I am to the staircase where I am folding my napkins, continue to listen.

Grandfather Finwe is assuring my uncle that he has been well welcomed, and they talk a little about the ride here (a journey my grandfather made with my cousins Maglor and Maedhros, who currently live near Grandfather Finwe while they finish their studies and mind their father’s affairs in New York. My father says that cousin Maedhros is planning to study law, but Maglor is only a musician and I cannot see what the point of schooling is, for music.

“Indeed, I have wanted for nothing,” Grandfather Finwe is saying, “except only the sight of my eldest.”

“Ah, but I had to keep you waiting, as I was preoccupied putting the final touches on your gift!” Uncle Feanor laughs, and there it is again: the giddy excitement leaping up like a banked fire, thoughtless. “It is finished, now.’

“My son,” Grandfather Finwe says quellingly, but with a soft fondness in his expression as he rests one thin hand on my uncle’s shoulder. “You know that no gifts are necessary beyond that of your company. Thank you,” he continues, indicating the wider room and the noisy parlor beyond with a generous wave of his free hand, “for gathering our family here today. I know what this means, to you, and I am grateful.”

The catlike smile that had begun to slink across my uncle’s face crashes into a frown. 

“Do not thank me,” he says, sparing barely a glance for the rest of us. His gaze meets mine for the briefest moment and I flinch despite myself: his eyes are like hot metal. “You should know by now, Athair: I would do anything, for you.”

*

Uncle Feanor’s appearance was good for one thing; in her determined act of ignoring his presence, Galadriel focused all her attention furiously on her table setting, which means she does not notice when I abandon my napkin post and hurry instead into the relative safety of the parlor. I seize upon the first unoccupied person I can find—by some stroke of luck, it is my always-talkative cousin Finrod, whose enthusiasm for debate is second to none—and I gratefully fall into conversation with him about the latest pamphlet he is obsessed with (for so do all cousin Finrod’s interests go, in waves of scintillating obsession separated from each other by long, dreary stretches of apathy). The authors’ names are very German, and despite Finrod’s best attempts to wax poetic on the subject I find it all very dull—and yet still much preferable to returning to women’s work at the table.

Thankfully, it is not long before the dinner bell rings, and I can excuse myself politely from the midst of Finrod’s explanation of how the proletariat is exploited by the existence of private property when I catch sight of Fingon, now alone, urgently waving at me from across the room.

“Oh, do sit next to me so that Celegorm does not,” he exclaims in a low voice when I reach him, with only mildly exaggerated desperation. I allow him to lead me towards the table, where my crooked place settings are easy to tell from Galadriel’s, which are even more skewed. She was angry, it would seem, after I abandoned her to finish the job alone. “I had to assure him three times that the bitch and pups were all in good health, never mind that I am studying as a doctor of _human_ medicine, not animal,” Fingon grouses to me as we choose our seats. “One of the pup’s heads is a little overlarge, but besides that making it rather uglier than the others there’s nothing _wrong_ with it.”

Even though he is complaining, there is no real irritation in his tone. He still has the glowing look of one who was recently basking in the full attention of one Maedhros Feanorian. 

“You should have told him they all needed drowning,” I say, and Fingon looks shocked. 

“A joke, a joke!” I assure him hastily, before he can start scolding. “Only, imagine his face if you told him they were all incurably ill!”

“I am, and it is not amusing,” Fingon tells me sternly. “It is not our cousin’s fault that he loves creatures better than people, and that he is stupid about it, sometimes.”

I shrug.

“As you like; but I still say he is insufferable and you should tell him your professional medical opinion is he is the one who needs his head looked at, not his dogs.”

My brother tries to chide me about that, too, but I see the corners of his mouth twitching, and I do not feel very contrite at all as we all settle into our seats, bow our heads as Grandfather Finwe says grace, and set to eating at last.

*

The roast is excellent, as are the potatoes and the sprouts, the chestnuts cooked in brown sugar and the apples cooked in amber honey. There are three different kinds of bread, one soft and white, one dark and heavy, one filled with nuts and raisins. The butter is made from milk from my Aunt’s own dairy cows, and the Ambarussa proudly inform me it was they who picked the apples. There is beer of course, and wine, and whiskey—expensive Irish stuff, brought from New York by my grandfather. There is also milk for the children, and cranberry juice, and cider. I bravely pour myself a drink from the beer pitcher and no one pays me any heed at all, which pleases me greatly. My mother is much more temperance-minded than my Irish side of the family, and would frown on me drinking freely at supper, but of course she is not here.

My aunt does not believe in separate tables for children and for adults, and so we are sitting all in a crowd together, around what must be five tables pushed together, taking up most of the sitting room and even spilling into the front hall. At the head of the long table is my grandfather, his thick, wavy white hair shining in the lamplight light almost as brightly as the rims of his golden spectacles. He is sixty-seven this year, but he looks much younger, especially when he smiles as he does now. To his left is my Grandmother Indis, lovely in lavender with a string of Telerin pearls soft about her throat. To his right, of course, is Uncle Feanor. My uncle is effusive tonight, dazzling and magnetic and beaming, but he offers each dish to his father and does not pass further along the table to where my Grandmother sits. The slight looks accidental, were this not Feanor, for whom nothing is accidental. 

Beside my Uncle Feanor is Aunt Nerdanel, changed into a pretty, printed gown accessorized by a red scarf that perfectly sets off her russet hair. Beside my Grandmother is my father, then Uncle Finarfin. Uncle Finarfin’s jacket is raw silk, dove grey and patterned with silver embroidery that matches both his buttons and his cufflinks. His blond hair is so fair it almost matches his mother’s—which is richer gold but mingled so much with white the shine of their heads is the same—and it curls like a woman’s hair. My father of course has dark hair like mine, but while mine is very straight, like mother’s, his is wild—like Uncle Feanor’s. 

I never think of my father and uncles looking alike, except for on those rare occasions when I see them together like this. Their faces, their voices, their mannerisms—all of these are very different, and Uncle Finarfin of course is fair while his brothers are dark. Yet seeing them together, one cannot deny these three are all Finwe’s sons, something intangible but irresistible marking them as being of the same blood. Perhaps this is why my uncle Feanor so hates to be in his half-brothers’ company, and why he tolerates Uncle Finarfin better, because he is fair and thus least alike to look upon.

Finrod is, as always, wearing the finest clothes among us cousins; everything he owns is specially tailored to fit and his Grandfather Olwe is nearly as wealthy as Grandfather Finwe, or so the rumors go. As a result, he has a very generous allowance that he spends almost entirely on his wardrobe. I know Galadriel at least thinks him ridiculous, for I saw the unflattering sketch of him she made in her last letter to Aredhel! All of my Finarfinian cousins show affection by teasing each other, though. I think they are the only people in all my enormous list of relations who are incapable of holding grudges. Sometimes, I wish I knew how they managed it. 

Angrod and Aegnor sit on either side of Finrod so that he might mind them, with Aunt Earwen on the other side of Aegnor. She is currently insisting that he finish his sprouts before he helps himself to more apples, absent-mindedly smoothing down his unruly hair which already looks more tangle than not. Angrod also looks a little worse for wear, a new scrape on his forehead and a stain on his white sleeve that it looks like he tried—and failed—to wash out. They made the mistake of playing outdoors with Curufin, I am sure of it. Neither boy seems ruffled by whatever led to their disheveled appearance, though, so hopefully that means Curufin has outgrown his game of locking cousins in sheds.

Beside me, Argon pokes me in the ribs with the back of his fork, and I hiss at him to stop, terrified he will leave gravy stains on my nicest vest. 

“I want more cider,” he tells me. I help him fill his glass, and then turn to offer some to Fingon on my other side, but my older brother waves the jug away, shaking his head. Fingon is a little flushed, smiling a little too readily. I narrow my eyes at him.

“Have you been drinking much already?” I frown. Usually, my paragon older brother would take offense at any such question, but now he just grins. 

“Maedhros bought some new wine when he was last in town and he wished me to sample it,” he explains. “It is very good.”

“I am sure it is,” I say, and congratulate myself on my restraint in that I do not roll my eyes even a bit. Across the table, Maedhros, seemingly hearing his name, glances at me and grins, the dimples I have seen employed to devastating effect in New York quirking deeply at the corners of his mouth. Nerdanel sent him, too, to make his hasty toilet before dinner began, and the deep emerald velvet of his waistcoat, though without any embroidery or embellishment, flatters his hair and complexion perfectly. His cravat is simple black, like Fingon’s, and his face is similarly flushed high about the cheekbones. When he sees I am staring, he winks, and nudges the wine bottle nearest him—the expensive one he and Fingon were sampling from so freely, it would seem—towards me. 

I push my empty glass towards him in answer, and he pours just enough for me to taste. 

I do not drink wine often, so to me this tastes like any other wine I have sampled in the past. I wish to appear worldly, though, so I nod to show my approval, and Maedhros laughs, and returns his attention to Ambarussa, who needs his meat cut small.

*

The meal passes mercifully without major incident; my uncles and my father make terse conversation that I cannot hear from my place at table, but Uncle Feanor evidently has better manners in his own house than he does in New York, for he looks as if he is making some effort at least to be civil. I expect the presence of Grandfather Finwe and Uncle Finarfin is also helpful in keeping the peace, for Feanor has never seemed as hateful towards Uncle Finarfin as he is towards my father, perhaps because Finarfin is the second son, or perhaps because they look less alike. It is also true that Finrod and his brothers and sisters inherited their general warm nature from their father, so it is more difficult to fall into a quarrel with Uncle Finarfin, too. Even now, I see him smile easily at something Uncle Feanor says, and as he replies, he unobtrusively sets his hand upon my father’s. He is the peacemaker; I wonder, idly, who among us cousins will be the peacemaker, once we are grown. I think of Curufin, and Aredhel, and Celegorm, and do not envy them their task.

Once supper is concluded, Nerdanel’s hired help (who ate their meal in the kitchen) reappear with the dessert, a massive pan of cornmeal pudding, smelling strongly of molasses and cinnamon, accompanied by candied ginger, fruit preserves, and pitchers of fresh cream. Maglor and Maedhros, especially, light up with anticipation of this treat, as it must be a family favorite they have missed while at school. The pudding is certainly more rustic than anything one can find in the city, and not particularly beautiful to look at. The taste, however, I will admit to be better than I expected.

It is after the click of silver against porcelain slows that Ambarussa start fidgeting, looking with eager eyes towards their father, who—seemingly sensing their excitement—is pointedly not meeting their gazes while he converses with his wife. It is Aunt Nerdanel who finally notices, and nods in their direction with a knowing smile.

“Amrod, Amras,” My Uncle says, relenting and looking round with a teasing expression, “have you something to ask me?”

“Athair!” They scramble out of their seats and run to stand behind his chair, and one of them—I am unable to tell them apart, when I cannot count their teeth—whispers in his ear. He shakes his head.

“Boys, manners! There will be no whispering in company. And that is a question for your grandfather, so why don’t you ask him?”

Uncle Feanor glances a look at his father as though they share a private joke, as his youngest children shuffle to our grandfather’s chair instead and the old man turns to face them kindly, holding out his hands.

“Grandfather,” Ambarussa asks, looking slightly more self-conscious, biting at his lip a little, “might we now have a ceili?”

“Of course,” Grandfather Finwe says, fondly ruffling the hair of his two youngest grandsons, and falling more deeply back into his native Dubliner accent, which makes them giggle. “And how could any party be a party without some good dancing to end it?”

Immediately the twins leap in delight, clapping their hands. Across the table from me, Maedhros shakes his head, smiling as he pushes his chair back to stand. 

“Athair and Grandfather already had the ceili planned, of course,” he tells Fingon. “Athair has been promising to let the twins stay up late dancing for weeks, now.”

*

“A ceili, a ceili,” the Ambarussa sing out in their high voices, and Galadriel catches them by the hands as she joins the chant, taller than them by a head already but only a year older. The three of them caper around in a circle while Feanor’s older sons start moving the furniture to the edges of the room or out of it entirely. Aunt Nerdanel and Aunt Earwen have already cleared the table, with help from Mary Mason and her friends—and, oddly enough, cousin Caranthir—but not my sister Aredhel because she cunningly escaped outside under the pretext of seeing Celegorm’s new dogs before my father could stay her. She is in for a scolding about that later, I am sure.

Maglor dashes upstairs, and soon returns with both a tin whistle and a battered fiddle case, which I know at a glance is the one that holds the beautiful gold-fretted fiddle Grandfather Finwe gifted him at his sixteenth birthday celebration. Uncle Feanor also disappears a moment, and re-enters the living room with a real Irish bodhran, beating the tipper restlessly against the backs of his knuckles as he walks. Maglor keeps the fiddle, which is already in tune since he practices it so often, and hands the whistle to Curufin. 

There are some half-enthusiastic groans from our many relations—myself included, as I ate too much to be in good mood for any exercise. But all of Feanor’s sons are eager, as are Fingon and Aegnor and Galadriel, so I fake enthusiasm as best I can and join the large ring that is forming in the now emptied greatroom. Uncle Finarfin also joins, pulling Aunt Earwen with him, and Grandfather Finwe similarly coaxes my Grandmother to accompany him into the circle, where she looks slightly self-conscious but not at all abashed. The farmers’ daughters are recruited to join the dance as well, so that the split between men and women might be more balanced. The disappointed Mary Mason, upon realizing Maglor will be providing the music and not participating in the dances, manages to claim handsome Finrod as a partner, but her friends are not so lucky: the blonde pairs with Angrod, the prettiest with Fingon, and the girl most obviously pining after Maedhros ends up falling reluctantly into line with Celegorm. I hope for her sake that she likes dogs.

The first dance is St. John’s Eve, which is a confusing, messy affair even with Grandfather Finwe calling the steps. It does serve to relax those of us who feel a little awkward with these lively party dances, though, so the Walls of Limerick runs a little better, and I cannot help laughing when I meet Aunt Earwen halfway up the line of the room and she takes my hand with an exaggerated, courtly air, as if this were a proper social dance and she and I were meeting for the first time. Galadriel is my partner, and after she stepped forcefully on my foot during the first circle of St. John’s Eve she seems to have forgiven me my betrayal about the napkins. Indeed, she is almost a pleasant dance companion, for she knows all the steps better than I, and prompts me of the next movements in urgent whispers so that I do not throw the lines into confusion. I think she does not want to seem part of my ignorance, if I were to make a mistake in front of Feanor and his sons.

This is especially important to her, I think, because it is very clear that ceili dancing is something all of Feanor’s sons excel at. That branch of our family has always considered themselves more Irish than American, as though one cannot happily be both.

After the Walls finally ends, with a wholly unnecessary flourish on the fiddle from Maglor, my family disperses to rest and take a little refreshment, wine and whiskey and water all sought eagerly. Maedhros helps our grandfather to a chair beside where Uncle Feanor is sitting with the drum at his knee, and Aunt Nerdanel, unbidden by her husband, pulls a chair over to join them so that Grandmother Indis might not sit alone. My aunt had danced the first dances with Maedhros, and she is still a little out of breath, but she looks now across the room to where my father has been standing, watching the revelry but not taking part, his wineglass still in his hand. 

My father does not look unhappy, to my eyes, but my aunt’s eyes soften, and she approaches him, and as we begin to reassemble for the next dance, she takes the wineglass from my father’s hand, and sets it on the mantel. 

He stares at her.

Uncle Feanor stares, too.

“Nerdanel,” he says, sharply. I think most people, spoken to in that tone, would quail, but my aunt returns his look calmly, hands on her hips.

“You have your hands busy with the bodhran, my love,” Aunt Nerdanel chides him, “And you ought not be jealous if that is the partner you chose. Poor Fingolfin has no partner with Anaire still abed, and we cannot as hosts be so discourteous as to demand he sit out all the dances? Come now, generous son of Finwe, and give us a tune!”

And I wonder at her daring as she takes my father’s reluctant hand, and takes it too as though this was the most natural thing in the world. My father keeps looking at my uncle, his face both flushed and pale and not like the father I know at all, until he seems to realize he is looking and looks instead down at the floor, and tries gently to extricate himself from my Aunt’s grip.

“I am quite all right,” he begins to protest, but then Grandfather Finwe moves, and all of us, already somewhat frozen, go silent as well. He sets one old hand on my Uncle Feanor’s arm, and Feanor leaves off glaring knives at my father to meet his own father’s gaze. He holds his anger for just a moment, but then Grandfather Finwe smiles and says something quiet that only my uncle can hear, and all the fury goes out of him, sudden as a candle snuffed out.

“A jig, I think, Maglor,” is what my uncle says as he turns back to the room, lifting his chin as he twirls the tipper in his clever fingers. “Let’s have a haymaker, and a quick one at that! I want to see what Irish blood there is in Indis’ sons.”


	3. Chapter 3

I do not remember ever seeing my father dance a ceili.

It is one of many points of contention between my eldest uncle and my father: the fact that Grandmother Indis is a second wife, and an Englishwoman and Anglican at that. I have been raised comfortably balanced between two cultures, so my father has ensured that I and my siblings have taken enough Irish dance instruction to not shame ourself in company. He has never shown me that he knows anything about folk dance, however. The most I have seen is the quiet waltzes at city society functions, where my parents are the most beautiful couple there—my father the most well-respected, my mother the most accomplished. That environment, I thought, was my family’s element.

I say I thought, because now I see my father dancing with my aunt, and it is like I have never seen him before at all.

Uncle Feanor sets the tempo at a blistering speed, and though Maglor keeps pace easily I see the brief worried look he flashes, almost despite himself, at his father. Maglor is not my favourite cousin, but I know he is one of the ones who would not of his own will be part of any public humiliation of my father. Still, that is the crucial flaw in all of Uncle Feanor’s sons: their will will never matter while their father is alive. There is not a single thought in their heads that was not Uncle Feanor’s first. One day Fingon will realize that, I am certain, and I will be kind and will not tell him _I told you so._

So: Uncle Feanor strikes the bodhran with a skill of hand he usually shows only in his metalworking, and Maglor flies along beside him on the fiddle, and Grandfather Finwe claps along while my Grandmother watches, wearing that placid smile she always wears in mixed company, and my father—my father dances.

Uncle Finarfin and Aunt Earwen are first couple to dance the solo, and both stumble over the fast pace, laughing and almost colliding when they race back to the center of the lines for the eight bar swing. Aunt Earwen does not even attempt to keep in time as she spins, one hand gripping my uncle’s and the other close about his waist, and Uncle Finarfin dances with all the ungainly enthusiasm of a man who loved the steps as a boy but has had little time to practice them in the intervening decades. Both their faces are flushed brightly by the time they cast off the line, and both are scarcely managing to breathe between the gasps for air and laughter. Aegnor is cheering, along with a very enthusiastic Galadriel. 

My Aunt and my father are the last couple in line. When it comes to their solo turn at last, it is Uncle Finarfin’s turn to cheer, and he shouts my father’s name with a boyish bravado that reminds me anew that they are brothers—and were brothers like Fingon and I, once, living under the same roof, children before they were men. I wonder if some memory I do not know has arrested my uncle; whether he is reminded of some ceili danced a long, long while before I was born. 

Perhaps my father, too, is recalled to some long distant happy memory, because when he hears my uncle call his name, he finally—for the first time—smiles.

Uncle Feanor stays to his racing speed, his rhythm not a heartbeat but a rainstorm, the rattling song of too many raindrops to count. Maglor is flushed with his fiddle-playing, too absorbed now in the music to remember his worry, and Curufin has given up his efforts at the flute, instead keeping time by striking it against the palm of his other hand, sweat beading at his temples. Aunt Nerdanel and my father turn and fly into the lacing movement, threading their spinning way up the entire double line array of dancers, smiling, laughing. Galadriel, when my father turns with her, cheers his name like her father did; when Aunt Nerdanel flies through her turn with Maedhros he dips his head very quickly to press a kiss into the riot of her hair. And then they are back in the center for the eight bar swing, in perfect order, while Grandfather Finwe claps to keep time, the toes of his fine black shoes tapping against the floorboards. 

My father flings my aunt into a spin, and they whirl about so quickly my eye can scarcely track them, their clasped hands acting as a single pivot point between them, their locked arms, each clasped tightly at the elbow, the axis around which they spin. The Ambarussa whistle, clapping their hands for their mother, whose fine skirts fly wide, her hair still keeping in its pins but barely. I myself am clapping before I realize it, and then my father is leading the casting off of the line, and then everyone is back in their starting places, and the music wheels to a rousing end, Maglor panting as he sets the fiddle aside to draw his shirtsleeve over his sweating brow, smiling as widely as I have ever seen him smile. 

“Bravo!” Cries Grandfather Finwe, rising from his seat as he applauds. My father at first does not speak as he recovers himself, for he is out of breath, shoulders heaving, his hair disheveled and the color high in his cheeks. But then he bows, first to Aunt Nerdanel and then to Grandfather Finwe, and he accepts the embrace his father offers.

When they break apart, my uncle Feanor is standing there, having set aside the bodhran to reclaim his wife. His face is cold, but he looks at the joy in my grandfather’s expression and then turns stiffly to my father, lifting his chin. Aunt Nerdanel has her hand on my uncle’s arm.

“It was well danced,” Feanor says, curtly. 

I cannot see my father’s face, but he bows, very slightly.

“Of course,” he replies. “It was you who taught me.”

*

Hours more of merriment pass before the revelry begins to die down. Aredhel reappears at some point—I do not catch the moment she slinks back indoors, only realizing she has returned when I see her partnered with Curufin for a cross reel—and by the time I am feeling drowsy Argon is actually asleep, curled up in an armchair that stands crookedly in the corner it was pushed into. Grandmother Indis covers him with her shawl, looking fond. Maybe she misses having babies of her own. My own mother frequently laments how fast Argon is growing, because he is the littlest of us four. At least Aunt Nerdanel has two youngest babies instead of only one; perhaps that makes the process easier. And anyway, surely seven babies is enough for mothering to lose its charm for any woman. I yawn hugely before I can catch myself, and hurry to cover my mouth with the back of my hand.

My father sees me yawning and casts a glance to Argon in the corner, his fond expression very like his mother’s. 

“Yes; it is near time for us to retire, I think,” he says, smiling. “Perhaps you might suggest to your grandfather that it is time we move towards bed?” He did not participate in any further ceilis, after the jig with Aunt Nerdanel, but Fingon has been up for most dances and I think he has enjoyed seeing my brother acquit himself well. Even Fingon, however, has now retired from the dance floor and is sipping at a drink, his farm girl dance partner hanging on his arm to include herself in his conversation, because he is conversing with Maedhros. Uncle Finarfin took up the bodhran when Uncle Feanor set it aside, but no one has had the energy to dance for the last half hour or so and he is now speaking quietly to his wife, a sleepy Aegnor leaning on his chair back. Maglor is deep in conversation with our grandfather, both their heads bent close over the gold-fretted fiddle as Grandfather Finwe points at something.

They do not notice as I approach, so I cough, uncomfortably. Maglor looks irritated to be interrupted, but Grandfather Finwe smiles warmly.

“Ah! Turgon, how are you, my dear. Enjoying the party?”

“Yes sir,” I say, biting back yet another embarrassing yawn. “Only, it is very late and Argon has fallen asleep, so my father says it is time we were going to bed.”

“Oh, of course, of course,” my grandfather says agreeably, looking about the room. “How about one last dance to close the night properly, then? The Siege of Ennis is my favorite, yet I think we have not danced it yet, this evening. You know the Siege, don’t you, Maglor?”

Of course Maglor does. 

I assure my grandfather that we can easily put together a Siege, but dancing another jig is a punishment I do not want, so I hurry over to where Fingon is, with his partner still ready to hand. Fingon is always willing to please, so surely he will be happy to dance a last jig for our grandfather.

As I approach, Fingon’s partner, whose name I have learned is Hetty, is giggling over her wineglass at something witty that has been said—by Maedhros, I expect, not Fingon, for my brother is blunt and lacks the intellectual flexibility and liveliness that both our elder cousins possess. Hetty certainly has eyes only for Maedhros, no matter how she hovers at Fingon’s elbow. And who can blame her, when he is like this, merry and mirthsome and radiant most of all? Either my eldest cousin is much more accustomed to late nights than I, or he is simply good at hiding weariness, because he does not look tired in the slightest.

“Fingon,” I interrupt, and all three of them turn to face me. “Grandfather says it is nearly time to go to bed, but he wants a Siege of Ennis first. Perhaps you could—“

“Grandfather wants a Siege?” Maedhros perks up, setting his glass on the mantel as he surveys the room. His eyes light up when he spies Caranthir standing nearby, busy with the decanter, and he glances back to us only long enough to wink, as though to say _watch what I am about to do._

Beside me, Hetty blushes brightest pink, and I groan inwardly.

Maedhros turns back to Caranthir, mischief writ bold across his fine features—wickedness, even, in his smile, but wickedness is only ever charming when coming from my eldest cousin. He crosses the short distance to his brother’s side, clears his throat, and waits for Caranthir to turn. 

“Oh, Maitimo.” Caranthir frowns. “What the devil do—“

Maedhros cuts him short by making a most courtly bow to his puzzled brother, and then takes Caranthir by the hand as he would a delicate society girl and asks, in the cultured manner I most associate with him from our encounters in the city: “May I have the honor of this dance?”

Fingon chortles into his sherry glass. Hetty’s blush deepens to a furious red, outraged.

Caranthir also flushes red and tries to pull away, beginning to protest vehemently that “You may _not_ ,” but Celegorm who was standing nearby has already caught on and with a whoop has seized Curufin and dragged him also into the center of the room, and little Ambarussa scamper to partner beside their brothers, and Maglor also jumps up from his chair at Maedhros’ exhortation, passing his precious fiddle to Grandfather Finwe. 

“Fingon!” Maedhros calls, laughing. “We need to make an even number!”

My brother, midway through drinking, chokes as he hastily pushes the glass he was drinking from into the hands of the scandalized Hetty, mumbles a poor excuse between coughs, and dashes forward to seize Maglor’s hand. This is the signal for Grandfather Finwe, who having settled the fiddle beneath his chin now throws himself into a jig lively enough to wake the dead. Everyone still breathless from last dance starts cheering as Uncle Feanor’s sons—and my own elder brother—launch into a Siege of Ennis, some more reluctantly than others, but all laughing, even ruddy Caranthir. 

My cousins dance with the unfettered, unconscious, graceful abandon of boys who have grown up filled with music. Maglor is the one everyone speaks of, when talking about musical talent in my family, but his brothers all have the same gift, just presenting in different ways. In the Ambarussa it is their voices, when they sing at home and at Mass. In Curufin it is the rhythm of the forge and the tempo of his hands at the anvil. In Maedhros it is the balance of how he stands and walks—and dances. There is an effortless, nimble surety to my eldest cousin’s steps that pairs with Grandfather Finwe’s blazing fiddle tune just as well as my uncle Finarfin’s bodhran does. No—that pairs even better, for Uncle Finarfin is laughing and so misses his timing once, but Maedhros too is laughing and he does not slip at all.

Uncle Feanor watches his sons and laughs, one arm around his wife, and I probably shouldn’t have seen the kiss he gives her, caught up in the heat and the rowdiness of my whirling cousins’ dancing, but I do see it—And I am the one who blushes, embarrassed, even though it is my uncle who should be ashamed to behave like that in company. He is proud of his sons, I think; and that is a notion strange enough to rouse me a little from my sleepiness, for who could have thought anyone could make Uncle Feanor proud except for himself? And yet for some reason he is delighted, watching my cousins dancing their foolish Siege, with exaggerated curtsying for the ladies’ parts and exaggerated bows for the men’s, while Grandfather Finwe plays with a nimbleness that makes me wonder how well he fiddled when he was Maglor’s age, near half a century ago. The entire room has roused a little to cheer my brother and my cousins on, with even Argon lifting his sleep-tousled head to peer about for the cause of the commotion, but the farmers’ daughters do poor jobs of hiding their sulks at the sight of all seven of Feanor’s sons choosing to dance with each other instead of with them.

My cousins take each spin like they are aiming to fling each other off their feet, and perhaps that truly is their game, for at last one of Ambarussa’s ankles catch Fingon’s, and he, unable to catch himself, falls directly into Caranthir, dragging Maglor with him with a yelp. The dance ends in disarray, with most of my Feanorian cousins in a tangle on the floor, while Fingon crawls out of the pile to offer his anxious hand in helping them to their feet, apologizing all the while. Maedhros—being one of the few who kept his footing—stands bent nearly double with helpless laughter, his bright hair fallen forward about his face, and does not help Fingon at his task.

“I hope that was a Siege of Ennis fine enough to satisfy you?” Maedhros gasps at our grandfather once he has largely controlled himself, wiping at his eyes and raking his sweaty hair back from his face with one hand. Grandfather Finwe, who had removed his spectacles to wipe away his own tears of merriment, resettles them upon the bridge of his nose and schools his face to sternness. 

“I have seen better,” he says gravely, only a small twitching at the corner of his mouth giving him away. “But I suppose that shall have to do.”

*

The last of the dancing ended, Nerdanel at last corrals the disappointed Ambarussa, who are still somehow leaping with energy and very reluctant to bid their grandfather a good night. Maedhros, seeing his mother in difficulties, leaves to help her convince the twins up the staircase to their bedroom, and once he has gone Grandfather Finwe turns his attention to little Argon, who has gone back to sleep on his armchair, curled like an overgrown, mop-headed cat. Grandfather gives him a tender look, shaking his head.

“Poor child! Fingolfin; I am sorry, for I have been selfish and kept your children from their beds. Shall we carry him up to sleep with the twins, or have you and Feanor made other arrangements?”

My father’s lips part, but I know not what he planned to say, for before he can make a sound Uncle Feanor comes striding to Grandfather Finwe’s side, smiling a wide smile that I immediately distrust.

“It is all right, Athair,” my uncle cuts in smoothly. “Fingolfin has already informed me that he and his family will be staying at the boarding house in Tirion tonight, as he wishes not to impose and desires to reduce the travel time for his return to the city tomorrow. I confess myself surprised by his solicitousness, but grateful too for his generosity.”

My uncle’s eyes glitter as he turns to see what my father’s reaction will be. I, myself, am speechless. The boarding house is small, rustic, and an hour’s drive back the way we came, with the time already being past two in the morning.

My father clenches his teeth. I suppose the expression is supposed to be a smile, but it is not a good one.

“Of course,” he says, a little roughly. “I wish to be home as soon as I may, to attend to my wife. This way, too, my brother Finarfin and his family have enough space to be comfortable sleeping here tonight.” 

He locks glares with Uncle Feanor, but if my father has lost the war here he has at least won the battle, and my uncle nods begrudgingly, caught in his own trap.

“Yes, of course Finarfin and Earwen are welcome to the spare room, and we will make beds for their boys. Artanis can room with the twins.”

And so it is settled: the farmers’ daughters will have beds in the kitchen, my various cousins will sleep squashed into their shared rooms, the spare room shall go to my uncle and aunt, Uncle Feanor is giving his own room to Grandfather Finwe and Grandmother Indis, and Uncle Feanor himself will sleep in Aunt Nerdanel’s workshop with his wife. Grandfather Finwe urges my father several times to reconsider, given the late hour, but each time my father reassures him that this is what he wants, and at last Grandfather Finwe subsides, not entirely satisfied but willing to defer to my father’s judgement.

There is space enough for my family in the parlor and sitting room, I am sure, but we head to the door to draw on our coats and boots in silence, with Aredhel darting out into the cold to alert our coachman, who had taken his dinner in the kitchen earlier and has since been napping in the coach in the stables. He will not take well to learning he is to drive another hour before a proper bed tonight, I think.

“Fingon may stay in my room with me,” Maedhros interjects hastily when he realizes we are leaving, having only rejoined the main company after affairs have already been settled—“as he tells me classes do not resume until Tuesday. We might ride back to town together tomorrow after Mass, with a stop at the Two Trees for the evening. I have business at my father’s bank on Monday, so I will be making the journey regardless, and will be glad of the company. It really is no trouble.”

His sincere generosity, somehow, makes the whole affair feel even worse. 

I want my father to refuse, but there really is no practical reason he can give, and so my eldest brother bids me goodnight at the door, helping me on with my coat. I shrug him off, angry in a way I cannot express properly under my uncle’s roof without breaking my word to my father. Fingon’s look of hurt stays with me as I climb back up into the cold carriage, shoving at a drowsy Argon for space on the padded bench seat. 

“Turgon,” my father says. I realize he saw me push Argon, and I brace myself ashamedly for a harsh word, but he does not scold. 

“Be kind to your brother,” is all my father says to me, as he climbs up to sit across from me. He sounds, and looks, very tired as he leans back against the bench.

We wait a moment quietly while our driver lights the lanterns on the outside of the coach. Argon huddles into Grandmother Indis’ shawl and seemingly falls asleep again. Aredhel, cross that Fingon is staying overnight with our cousins and she is not, is glaring stormily out the window at my uncle’s house, her lower lip jutting out tremulously to hold back tears—of anger, undoubtedly, but nevertheless still tears. The coach sways slightly as our driver hauls himself up onto his seat and takes a moment to gather the reins.

On sudden impulse, I move from my customary seat into the empty space that is usually Fingon’s, next to my father. I lean my head against his shoulder as the carriage jolts forward, beginning its slow, laborious way to town, and I don’t say anything, and neither does he. But after a few minutes my father’s hand comes up to stroke my hair, silently, and that is how I fall asleep at last.

*  
*  
*

Fingon does not so much wake as he simply comes back to awareness of his body and the pain in that body—needles of fire piercing through his extremities with a red-hot buzzing that soon verges upon the unbearable. He groans, and tries to protest against whoever is driving the needles into his fingers—and whoever is shaking him by the shoulder, vigorously—but to his mild, confused surprise, words do not come. 

He concentrates, and finally his lips part: “Turgon,” he breathes.

Because that is who is shaking his shoulder, who is kneeling in the snow at his side, with a fire burning uncomfortably nearby: it is his younger brother, nigh unrecognizable in piled furs and cracked leather, bundled so that he scarcely resembles a man at all. Turgon’s head snaps up when he hears Fingon’s voice, and his face is a horror, ravaged and awful with the anger his grief has become. Fingon does not know, honestly, if any of them will be lucky enough to grow old—not while a hunger deeper than any he has ever known has tormented him until he wakes from sleep at night to spit blood, because while dreaming he gnawed at his own tongue; not while the cold claims fingers, and toes, and ears, and he as the closest thing they have to a doctor of medicine must be the one to cut off all of them. But Turgon has aged, and aged cruelly, since their mother died and his wife stayed behind on the banks of the Mississippi with little Idril. Too early married, maybe, and too early a father, and barely did those two things have time to change Fingon’s little brother before the loss of them did.

Fingon’s little brother? —Yes. And his only brother, now.

Oh, how quickly it all comes back! The snow, and the ice, and the bitter, bitter cold, and all the misery that came before.

“Oh, my God,” Turgon chokes, eyes round and staring, and then he throws himself on Fingon in a frantic embrace, burying his face in the front of his coat. “You wouldn’t wake up!” Turgon cries, almost hysterical. “Damn your eyes, Fingon! I thought you were dying!”

_Maybe I was, thinks Fingon,_ but he has not the strength to voice that particular thought aloud, so he concentrates instead on trying to sit, with Turgon’s help. At last he is sitting hunched close over the fire—a fire that had not been there, last he remembers, because the wind had been blowing too cruelly, the snow too thick, for lighting any kind of blaze. The air is quiet now, still as death, and the walls of piled snow about the barrier they made of their remaining wagons have grown three feet at least. Over the snow, the sky is still a heavy, bruised silver-white, promising the storm is not truly over.

Fingon’s hands feel almost normal again as he flexes his fingers experimentally towards the flames and then shoves them back under his armpits. Turgon is still sitting too close to him, not saying anything, but continually glancing at Fingon’s face, as though afraid if he looks away too long Fingon will leave him there.

It is strange. Fingon had never really considered himself very close with his younger brother before they headed west—or even before they arrived at the charcoal ruins of what had once been Ulmo’s Bridge—but. 

Things have changed.

“Where did you get the fuel?” Fingon croaks at last, just to be saying something. Turgon shoots him a sharp look from beneath his thick brows, frowning. 

“Before he left, father said to begin burning anything that will burn. No sense holding onto the wagons til the storms break if we are not alive come springtime. And anyway, so many have died, now—“ He takes a shuddering breath, and clamps down the corners of his mouth—“I mean, there was no need to have so many anymore, anyway. This is the bench seat, mostly, and some of the siding. We have crates we can empty, too—“

He blinks.

“Hey, didn’t Maglor give you his fiddle, before they left? We should burn that next.”

“No!” As he slowly—not warms, nothing as kind as that, but moves a little father from freezing—Fingon has begun to shake violently, his teeth clicking together with the spasms, his muscles aching. This trembling that strikes him now is not that. He clutches at Turgon’s coatsleeve with his clumsy, frantic hands.

“No, Turgon, you cannot!”

“And why not? If Maglor wanted it, he wouldn’t have burned the goddamned bridge. Serves him right.” Turgon tries to jerk his arm away, but Fingon refuses to let go.

“I-I know,” he says, weakly. “But—it was grandfather’s.” Turgon stops trying to pull away, but his expression twists.

“As if you care about that. As if this isn’t just you trying to protect your precious Feanorians again, even now, even after—after—“ Words fail him. Of course they do, Fingon thinks, shuddering and sick. There are no words left, for what their lives have become.

“That is what I was dreaming about,” Fingon whispers, and sniffs, finally releasing Turgon and scrubbing roughly at his face with the back of one gloved hand. Touching his face is always painful, these days, as his skin has been scraped raw with the wind and the cold, but he can’t let Turgon see him crying. Not again. 

“I dreamed about that last time grandfather played the fiddle, for the dancing at his retirement party. Do you remember? When we went to Formenos?”

“Of course I do.” Turgon does not flinch. “It was dreadful.”

To Fingon, newly wakened from his dreaming, it feels so close—his father smiling, Argon sleeping, Maedhros laughing. Some people go blind here, in the blizzards, because they strain too hard to see images in the white that are not there. Fingon knows his own blindness, but still he cannot help looking—cannot help clinging to the memory, of Maedhros drunk and shameless and bidding him openly to follow in whatever fool scheme he has planned now. Trust Turgon to remember that night as a dreadful one; the memory is a torment to Fingon only because it brings so near everything that he is wise enough to know he has lost forever.

“I think it was the last time I was fully happy,” he says, very quietly. He does not dare to look at his brother as he confesses; instead he stares into the already guttering fire, and sniffs again, shivering.

There is a pause. And then—

“Very well,” Turgon says, at last breaking the silence; “keep the blasted thing, then, and just—don’t let anyone else see it.”

Fingon nods, grateful and ashamed, his thanks sticking in his throat. But then he hears Turgon sigh, and his brother is hugging him—awkwardly, stiffly, but still. His brother is not warm, but he is not cold, either.

“It will be all right,” Turgon mutters into his ice-damp hair. “Just—don’t give up.”

Fingon nods again, and returns the embrace tightly, closing his eyes. 

_Don’t give up,_ Turgon ordered. 

Fingon no longer believes that anything shall be all right, but that, at least, he can do.


End file.
